The Safe House (16 page)

‘Mine, for once.’

‘So you know how it feels.’

I felt cross.

‘I knew how it felt already, Finn. I knew. It was wrong of you to say that about Elsie. Don’t bring my daughter into this.’

‘I’m desperate for them to be caught, Sam.’

There was something eerily theatrical about all of this.

‘We all want that.’

‘I want to help. I’ve been thinking and thinking, trying to remember something, anything that could help the police. A smell maybe, a voice. I don’t know.’

My mind was clouded by it all, by the wine, the warmth of the fire, the lateness of the hour. I tried to make myself think clearly. Was she trying to tell me something?

‘Finn, is there something you’re holding back, something you haven’t told the police?’

‘I don’t think so. At least…’

‘Was there anything else that happened to you during the assault? Have you told the police everything?’

‘Why should there be anything? I wish there was. Maybe there’s something I’m not facing up to. Perhaps I’m being cowardly. Sam, I want to help. Can you do anything for me?’

She put her arms around me and held me, so close that I could feel her heart beating. She was hugging me desperately. This was creepy, all wrong, as if I were being seduced by somebody who knew I couldn’t reject them. I put my arms around her like a mother comforting a child, but at the same time I was watching myself putting my arms around her, wondering what I was doing. I was dubious about my role as Finn’s doctor, dubious about my role as Finn’s friend, and now she was expecting me to become some sort of psychological detective, some sort of soul mate.

‘Sam, Sam,’ she moaned. ‘I feel so lonely and helpless.’ If this was a crisis, I wished I felt a bit more in control of it, less manipulated.

‘Stop this and calm down. Stop!’ I pushed her away. Her eyes were puffy and wet, she was panting. ‘Listen to me. We’re here to support you. You are protected. No harm will come to you. All right? Secondly, it is entirely possible that there could be a degree of memory loss associated with emotional and physical trauma and it is remediable. But now, late at night, when we’re tired and overwrought, is not the time to talk about it. Things can be done, but I doubt whether I would be the right person to do them. For a variety of reasons. Above all, there are kinds of therapeutic help that you can’t get from me and you can’t get in this environment. We have to think about that. I regard you… That’s too clinical. You are a dear friend. But we have to think about things. But not now. Not even tomorrow. Now go to bed.’

‘Yes, Sam,’ she said in a frail, chastened voice.

‘Now,’ I said.

She nodded and took a final sip of her coffee and left the room without a further word being exchanged. When she was gone I gave a great sigh. What had I brought into my house? And now Elsie adored Finn more than anybody else in the world. What was I doing to everybody?

I went upstairs. I let my clothes fall and got between the sheets in my dark bedroom and felt the warmth of Danny’s body. I ran my hands over him, under, over, between. I needed him badly. He turned and clutched me fiercely. He kissed me hard, his teeth nipping at my lips. I felt his hands rough on my body. I bit into his shoulder to stop myself from screaming with a pleasure that was almost fear. He pinned my arms above my head with one large hand and felt me with the other, felt me as if he were learning me all over again. ‘Don’t move,’ he said as I wriggled in his grasp. ‘Lie quite still now.’ And as he thrust into me I felt he was fucking me with all the suppressed passion, anger even, of the evening. He didn’t speak my name, but he looked at me steadily and I shut my eyes to escape from his. Afterwards I felt battered, wounded. Danny’s breathing became slow and regular and I thought he was asleep. When he spoke it was in the drowsy, slurred tone of a man half asleep, who can scarcely order his thoughts.

‘Have you been looking at Finn?’ he murmured. ‘Really looking at her. Like the great doctor you are.’ I began to answer but he continued speaking as if I wasn’t there and he was just thinking aloud. ‘Or is it all Sam and Elsie and the house and the countryside and a new best friend?’ The bed creaked as he turned, and I felt his breath on my cheek. ‘Have you looked at her, Sam? What’s your sort of word? Objectively. Scientifically.’

‘Are you obsessed with her, Danny?’ A horrible thought came into my mind. ‘Is that it? Were you fantasizing about Finn?’

I was breathless, my heart racing, I could feel its beat in my ears.

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

I felt him turn away from me.

‘Night, Danny.’

‘Night, Sam.’

When I woke the next morning, Danny had gone.

Twenty-One

‘Am I allowed in here?’

‘So long as you don’t try to do anything,’ Finn replied.

‘Don’t worry.’

My kitchen was like a mad scientist’s laboratory, steam and heat and mysterious clatters and hums. Everything was being used. On the hob a pan sizzled and the lid of a saucepan was shivering as vapour puffed over the rim. A bowl of water contained what looked like soggy leaves. The chicken breasts were in the oven. Finn was chopping something very quickly on a board, rat-a-tat-tat, like a snare-drum roll.

‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is the way you’re doing all the different bits at the same time. When I try to cook, I have to do one thing after another and even then I get it wrong.’

A couple of old friends were coming round for supper. Normally I would have got a take-away in or popped various pre-cooked dishes into the microwave, but Finn said to leave it all to her, that she would do something simple. After dropping Elsie at school, we had driven twenty miles through villages, past antique emporia and the paddocks of riding schools, along the coast to a supermarket which was comfortingly identical to the one I used to go to on the way home from work when I lived in London. I bought some frozen stuff and bin-bags and washing-up liquid and Finn headed for the real food: chicken breasts not wrapped in Cellophane, mushrooms and rice in expensive small boxes, rosemary, garlic, olive oil, vegetables, red and white wine. As the trolley filled, I tried to talk her out of it.

‘Sarah and Clyde are just like me. They’ve lived on takeaway vindaloos all their professional lives. Their tastebuds have been burned away. They won’t know the difference.’

‘Enjoy yourself while you’re alive,’ Finn replied. ‘Because you’re a long time dead.’ It was with difficulty that I did not gasp.

‘That’s why I’ve never bothered about what food I eat.’

‘Shame on you, Sam. You’re a doctor.’

Finn was becoming alarmingly imperious and I was becoming strangely passive, like a guest in my own house. It occurred to me, before I hastily pushed the thought away, that in the last few weeks, as she had recovered and bloomed again, so my grip on my own life had weakened. Elsie seemed half in love with Finn, Danny was gone again, my trauma unit had become someone else’s capitalist dream, my book stayed unwritten.

During the early evening my kitchen looked like a casualty department. I did some work and played a bit with Elsie and put her to bed, and when I came back a couple of hours later, without much appearing to have been done it had subsided into something tidier: an intensive-care unit, maybe. There was beeping and bubbling, but only the occasional moment of activity, a stir here and a sniff there.

Sarah and Clyde arrived, just after seven, panting and virtuous in their fluorescent cycling gear. They had taken the train to Stamford and biked out. They headed up for a bath and came back down in jeans, loose shirts. This was the authentically miraculous bit. Even if supper had consisted of nothing more than pizza in cardboard boxes brought to the house by motorbike and six-packs of beer, I still would have been rushing round in a panic. But this evening there was an air of serenity. A couple of bottles of wine stood open on the table next to the olives and some little things of salami and cheese that Finn had put together, and the table was laid and there was a general smell of nice food hanging around the place, but without any sense that anybody was actually doing anything. Finn wasn’t red-faced and dashing off to the kitchen every two seconds to deal with some crisis. She was there, pouring out wine, and not being ostentatious. She had put on a pair of pale slacks and a smockish black top and tied her hair back. Fuck, I was impressed with her.

Maybe I’d become friendly with Sarah and Clyde not just because we’d trained together but because they were tall and rangy like me. Sarah’s flowing hair was grey now and she had wrinkles round her eyes. Clyde still had the chiselled, long-boned Clark Kent looks of the rower he had been at university, but he’d got thinner, so his prominent Adam’s apple seemed even larger. We were all big and looked at each other from the same level. Clyde and Sarah were GPs together at a practice in Tower Hamlets. When they had a free weekend, they would put their bikes on to a train, head out from London and cover a couple of hundred miles by Sunday evening, hopping between the houses of friends. I was the first pit-stop on this weekend’s route.

‘And tomorrow we’re staying with Helen – you know, Farlowe.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Blakeney. North Norfolk.’

‘Jesus, you’ll have earned your dinner tomorrow night.’

‘That’s the whole point.’

We took our drinks outside and wandered in the grounds, as I sarcastically called the neglected garden. Sarah identified birds by their songs and Clyde told me the names of the plants in the garden, some of the nicest examples of which, it emerged, I had weeded in a fit of enthusiasm and tossed on to my compost heap. Finn called us in and we had little bowls of succulent rice with reconstituted mushrooms, followed by chicken cooked in olive oil and garlic and rosemary, with new potatoes and spring greens.

‘Unlike me,’ I explained to Finn across the table, ‘Sarah and Clyde have stayed in London and are doing a real job.’

‘You shouldn’t do yourself down, Sam,’ she said, with feeling.

Sarah laughed.

‘Don’t worry, Fiona,’ she said. ‘Sam is not generally famous for her English modesty and reserve.’

‘Anyway, it’s not modesty,’ I said. ‘The point is to be self-deprecating so that other people then step in and say how wonderful you are. It’s a way of inviting praise.’

Finn shook her head with a wistful smile.

‘I don’t believe that,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe that most people are independent enough to look at what someone does and make up their mind about it for themselves. It’s too much trouble. People take you at your own valuation. If you say you’re good, most people will believe you. If you’re modest, they’ll agree with you.’

Finn’s fervent statement was followed by a cavernous silence which was broken by Clyde.

‘And what do
you
do? And we don’t expect you to be modest about it.’

‘I’m writing a thesis,’ Finn said.

‘What about?’

‘It’s to do with the history of science.’

‘In what way?’

‘You don’t want to hear all about my work.’

‘Yes, we do.’ Sarah insisted warmly. ‘Remember, we’re all licensed to boast about ourselves now.’

Finn glanced across the table at me. I tried to think of some way to stop this disaster but everything that came into my mind seemed as if it would make matters worse. There was a long pause as Finn leaned over for the wine, filled her glass and then took a sip.

‘You really want to hear about this?’ she asked.

‘We’re on the edge of our seats,’ said Clyde.

‘Well, you asked for it. I’m writing a thesis on the taxonomy of mental disorders, using post-traumatic stress disorder as the principal subject.’

‘What does that mean when it’s at home?’

Finn gave me the most imperceptible of winks across the table before she replied.

‘Basically, the question that fascinated me is the extent to which a particular pathology exists before it has been named. Has it been discovered, identified or invented? There have always been broken legs and tumours. But did Neanderthals suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after they had been in battle with their flint knives and axes?’

‘There was shell-shock after the First World War, wasn’t there?’ Clyde said.

‘Yes, but do you know where the term came from?’

‘No.’

‘They thought the explosions of the shells were causing physical damage to the nerves around the spine. The reason for this is that the condition was first given medical status after survivors of a Victorian rail crash presented symptoms of shock but no physical injuries. They assumed it was caused by the physical impact and called it “railway spine”. When similar symptoms were observed in the trenches, they assumed it was caused by Shockwaves from the shells. They needed to believe it was a version of the sort of thing they called injury. Maybe the soldiers were just displaying a natural response to the madness of fighting in the trenches. But then people with the power to do so call some of these forms of behaviour symptoms and call them a disorder and treat it in a medical environment.’

‘Do you think it’s an invention?’

‘That’s what Sam is investigating.’

‘How did you two get together?’

‘Someone in my department knew about Sam’s research. I’ve got a background in statistics and Sam had a spare room and it seemed a good idea for me to stay here for a while. I’m very lucky. I suspect that Sam’s work is going to redefine the subject and put it on a proper systematic basis for the first time. I’m just lucky to be tagging along with her for a bit.’

Sarah looked across at me.

‘Fiona makes it sound fascinating. How’s the research going?’ There was a silence. ‘Sam?’

‘What?’

‘How’s the research going?’

‘Sorry, I was miles away. Fine, it’s going fine.’

‘And she can cook as well.’

‘Yes,’ I said, feebly.

∗

I absolutely wouldn’t let Finn do the washing-up. I sent her through to the living room with Clyde while I washed and Sarah dried.

‘How’s your book going?’

‘Not,’ I replied.

‘Oh dear – well, when you’ve written it, would you like me to have a look?’

‘That’d be great, except you might have to wait a long time.’

‘And how’s Danny?’

‘I don’t know really,’ I said, and to my horror I felt tears prick at my eyelids.

‘Are you two OK?’

I shrugged, not wanting to trust my voice.

Sarah glanced across at me, then meticulously polished off a spoon and put it in the drawer. ‘Fiona’s a real find,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said a bit gloomily.

‘She idolizes you, you know.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

‘Of course she does. I was looking at her during the meal. She looks at you constantly. She was echoing your expressions, your posture. After everything she said, she almost seemed to check with you, just for a fraction of a second, as if she needed to be reassured about your reaction.’

‘That sounds almost creepy.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘Anyway, it’s common, isn’t it, with… er, teachers and pupils. It’s like patients becoming attached to their doctors. And it’s only for a short while.’

Sarah raised an eyebrow.

‘Really? I thought she was helping with your project.’

‘She is for the moment, but this isn’t a permanent arrangement.’

‘I’m amazed you can manage without her.’

Sarah and Clyde were leaving almost at first light, so after coffee and some shoptalk, they went up to bed. Finn was lying on the floor with a book.

‘That was extraordinary.’

‘What?’

‘I almost had a heart attack when Clyde starting asking you about your research.’

Finn put down the book and sat up, her knees pulled close to her chest.

‘I felt awful for you,’ she said. ‘I just tried to think of anything I could to be convincing. I hope it was all right.’

‘All right? You made me want to read your thesis. I can’t believe how much you’ve taken in. You’re an amazing girl, Finn. Woman.’

‘It’s not me, it’s you, Sam. I’m just interested in you and your work. When Clyde asked me about what I was doing, I completely panicked for a second. Then, do you know what I did? I imagined myself as you and tried to say what you would say.’

I laughed.

‘I wish I was as good at being me as you are,’ I said.

I turned to go but Finn continued talking.

‘I want all this to go on, you know.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I love it. Don’t smile. I really do. I love you and I love being with Elsie and looking after her. I think Danny’s wonderful. And Michael… he saved my life, really. I’d be nothing without him. I don’t know what I could ever do to pay him back for what he’s done for me.’ She looked up at me, almost pleading. ‘I want it to go on and on.’

It was a moment I had been waiting for and now I was relieved it had come. I knelt beside her.

‘Finn, it can’t. You have a life of your own. You have to go back into it, and soon. Look at yourself, you can do anything. You can do it.’

Finn’s eyes filled with tears.

‘I feel safe here, in this house,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened of outside.’